Aug. 9, 2007 - Mitten Kitten
At one time we had four cats in our house. My husband has never really been a "cat person". So when we moved into this house he said we could have only one. We got an eight week old kitten and my youngest daughter named her Strawberry Shortcake. With two hamsters and a couple of toads, our pet set seemed complete. My youngest always asked for another cat, but I would just remind her about dad's "only one" rule and she was fine.
So then last November we had a stray hanging around our porch. My daughter was quick to feed her. I was certainly not going to discourage such humane behavior as feeding a starving animal, even though I knew it would mean the cat would become a frequent visitor. And seeing that she was also infested with fleas, I gave her a flea treatment to relieve some of her suffering from that as well.
One day it was storming and the visitor kitty was desperate for shelter. She sat by the front door meowing and the wind was literally blowing her off into the flower beds. She just kept coming back onto the porch only to be blown off again. I could not stand to watch. I let her in. A few days, and a few baths later, she became our cat. As a brown and black Siamese mix, she was thoughtfully named Cookie Dough.
Now at the farm stand where my oldest daughter works, there are always kittens that the owner gives away free to customers who would like to take one home. Last week my youngest named one for her own, a black and white kitty she called S'mores, and begged daddy to let her bring it home. He told her no. I reminded her we do have two already that she loves very much. She relented.
No two days later she came home from a friend's house carrying, you guessed it, a kitten. She's an orange & white striped tabby, already named Ginger Snap before my daughter brought her in the door. "She doesn't have anyone to love her mom." My voice was telling her we'd clean her up and put her out at the farm stand and find her a good home. My heart was hoping, just as my daughter's was, that she'd be here to stay. I silently worried too that if my husband refused to let us keep her, we might have a hard time finding her a good home. She has actually two paws on each of her front feet. I knew some people might not look past her deformities. Her paws look like she's wearing mittens.
We are so enjoying her! Just like a new real baby, it's a lot of work, but so much fun. And for a kitten born to a stray momma, she is so lovey. She makes her rounds for attention between my daughter and I, and the other kids, like we are her siblings. She's even grown on my husband already, though he shakes his head in disbelief that he's agreed to three cats in the house now.
The other two cats are a little leery of her. Strawberry is leery, it seems, because she knows she has to share attention with yet another cat. Cookie just keeps looking for the baby's mamma. She tries to get close, then looks around to see if a mamma is close behind. Yesterday Cookie got so spooked she ran and got herself stuck behind our big roll-top desk. We had to take it apart to get her out! But then she was right back to checking on the new baby, smelling her and overseeing her litter box trips like she was the mamma. She's not even thinking that the kitty's new mamma is right here all the time- a seven year old girl with a heart as big as the sky!
Comments
Aug. 18, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by naturalpaths
